3. This is the most important: if you can find a microSD in it, TAKE A BACKUP OF IT!! BEFORE YOU TRY TO SIDELOAD ANY FIRMWARE! I mean take an image file of the whole card, so that in the future you can revive your Kobo relatively easily if you brick it...
There are several of us in this forum who has bricked their reader by sideloading a firmware on it.. Check this thread: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=201132

I have a touch I bought last July which has a microSD card inside. Kobo desktop updated it to 2.31, which was a disaster. I sideloaded firmware 2.15 for the old touch on it, and it works just fine.